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Caribu is a new ingenious iPad application that lets parents video call their kids and read bedtime stories to them, no matter where they are. Created by four university students, this iPad app has a brave purpose – to recreate the warm environment where mom, dad or the grandparents can read to their kids or grandchild bedtime stories before they go to sleep.

There are many situations when parents aren’t near their little ones – they might have some extra work at the office, be in a business trip, work in the army, have to commute or worse, the parents could be separated. The app can be downloaded for free from iTunes, but then you will have to pay $2.99 for every book that you download after the first one which is available for free. Ben Mallett, one of the four students who created the app, explains what they hope to achieve with it:

We wanted to create an app which helped families defy long distance and bring each other closer together. So many families are separated these days, with divorce, travel, and even long working hours meaning families don’t spend that much time together. This app is about bringing families together through technology, and allowing them to share important moments in their days, wherever they are in the world

The app comes with a shared pointer which allows users to follow the story together. Other features include synchronised page turning and offline reading for those moments when you’re together and you don’t need to make any video calls. Caribu was accepted onto the Microsoft Ventures accelerator program back in December, so maybe we could see some more interesting new features in the future.

A web, as well as an Android version of Caribu will also get released in the future. At the moment, Caribu is available only iPads, and it makes sense why – the screen is bigger and more suitable for storytelling. And developers know that iOS devices bring in much more revenue than the Android counterparts. An iPhone version could also be on the cards, but with the actual iPhone size, I guess it won’t look that great. Unless Apple makes it bigger…

was the Managing Editor of Technology Personalized. He now writes about Windows 10 apps and reviews them on WindowsReport. Believes that technology is the main engine of civilization. Send him a tweet or make him your Facebook friend